[EM] 01/18/03 - Markus on Parties and Candidates in any mix:

[Donald Davison]

01/18/03 - Markus on Parties and Candidates in any mix:

Dear Markus and list members,

Markus, you wrote on Sun, 12 Jan 2003:
From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
Subject: Re: [EM] Markus Schulze Wrote and Wrote Again:
Dear Donald,  you wrote (12 Jan 2003):
> Donald:  You should accept this event as proof that most voters vote for
> party first, not the candidate.  Therefore, the better method of the future
> will be a method in which the voter is free to rank parties and/or
> candidates in any mix.

"Markus: "Your statement is very strange because I promote a system where
the voter is free to rank parties and candidates in any mix while you
promote MMP."

This is interesting, I did not realize that anyone on this list would
promote a system where the voter is free to rank parties and candidates in
any mix.
I would like to review this system, where can I see it?  Is it on a
website?  I would like to take a sharp pencil and go over your system
looking for flaws - Ha Ha.

As for MMP, it is not like I am promoting MMP, it's just that the
discussion was about methods that are in use and MMP is the best District
multi-seat method in use today.  But, in my variant of MMP, the voter is
free to rank parties and candidates in any mix.

I had written:
> Donald:  This is necessary in order for the voter to vote for his party
> regardless of the candidate.  It is the desire of the majority to vote for
> their party first, don't fight it Markus, join them, allow the voter to
> rank both parties and candidates.

Markus: "I'm not fighting it. You are fighting it. I want you to remember
that I promote a system where voters can rank both parties and candidates
while you promote MMP. In one of my 24 Dec 2002 mails, I wrote: "I suggest
that a voter should be able to rank parties and candidates."  Markus
Schulze

Donald:  Ops, shame on me, I failed to notice your suggestion.

I went back to December 24th, but I was unable to find your Dec 24 post in
which you said that, but I was able to find a letter by James in which he
quotes you as saying that, so you get full credit, James would not lie.

Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 19:03:41 -0000
From: "James Gilmour" <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
To: <election-methods-list at eskimo.com>
Subject: RE: [EM] 12/22/02 - Markus Schulze Wrote and Wrote again:

Markus wrote:
> In Australia, the voter has either to cast an X-vote for one and
> only one party or to rank all candidates. I suggest that a voter
> should be able to rank parties and candidates.


Anyway, in another letter of yours, also dated Dec 24, you wrote about
split votes.

Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 22:39:28 +0200
From: Markus Schulze <markus.schulze at alumni.tu-berlin.de>
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [EM] 12/22/02 - Markus Schulze Wrote and Wrote again:

"The vote of a voter, who votes for this party but who doesn't explicitly
use the suggested ranking, should be split among the candidates of this
party."

Donald:  I found it best not to split party votes among the candidates of
the same party, but instead, I now keep each vote sum separate, like, Party
Votes, Candidate A votes, Candidate B votes, etc.

Then these sums are added together and divided by the number of remainding
candidates of the party.  The party with the lowest average votes per
candidate would have its lowest candidate eliminated.  Doing it this way
makes the math much easier.

In the event a party would have all its candidates eliminated then the
party votes would also be transferred to the next choices on their ballots.

Years ago I tried to construct a system in which the party votes would be
split between the party's candidates, but when a candidate was eliminated,
the split party paper that was being held by this candidate needed to be
split again between the remaining party candidates (not transferred to the
next choices).
  The math got too messy.

There are no more split party papers to deal with since I created my
elimination rule as follows: `The candidate to be eliminated shall be the
lowest candidate of the party with the lowest average votes per candidate.'

  Try it - you'll like it!






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